I try to read Church of the Customer Blog as often as I can. They do a really good job of taking Internet topics and applying them to everyday business issues. In the last week they have had some really great posts talking about Social Media:
In 7 questions with Josh Bernoff they interview Mr. Bernoff about his first book “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies”. The interview is a good read on how businesses can get it right but also where they get it wrong:
Concentrating on the technology first. If you decide on the objectives you want to accomplish, you may get where you’re going. If you say “let’s start a blog” or “let’s start a community” you may be calling me 6 months from now saying “I got this off the ground, now how is this supposed to be helping me?” This is actually a lot more common problem than technology problems or authenticity issues, which get all the discussion.
They discuss the battle between short-term campaigns vs. long-term evangelism in Closing a Disney community. Where Disney’s Virtual Magic Kingdom is being shut down even though it has attracted more than a million users.
Good coverage of social media and ecommerce. Read up and get a clue.
